Blind faith in Bush is the very opposite of all that which conservatism has stood for for the last four decades. The anti-government ethos espoused by Barry Goldwater and even Ronald Reagan is wholly unrecognizable in Bush followers, who - at least thus far - have discovered no limits on the powers that ought to be vested in George Bush to enable him “to do good” on behalf of all of us. And in that regard, people like Michelle Malkin and Jonah Goldberg are not conservatives. They are authoritarian cultists. Their allegiance is not to any principles of government but to Bush. The rage-based reverence for Bush — and the creepy, blind faith vested in his goodness — is not a movement I recognize as being conservative or even American.
February 19, 2006
Cult of personality
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The syndrome is monarchical, the un-republican belief that the sovereign is and should always be one person rather than several people or all the people. In German it's the "FÔøΩhrerprinzip." In Spanish, "caudillismo." Makes sense for you to use the Russian equivalent, which under Stalin couldn't be "autocracy" or "czarism," or "dictatorship," but had to be spoken of obliquely as the "cult of personality." In our republic, called "decaying" by Robinson Jeffers, I'd like it to be called "president-worship."
To republicans it's revolting behavior. To Republican Party members, it's begun to seem quite natural. But it's an indispensable prelude to Caesars and dictatorship.
As Benjamin Franklin pointed out, it's only a Republic if you can keep it.
-W Everdell, Brooklyn